


Bitter Tea

by mistr3ssquickly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: And this is totally incest, At least they don't know yet, F/M, I don't even write het stuff, Mention of intentional family planning, what is this story even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke presses a dusty kiss to Leia’s lips, his hands warm through her clothes in the orange heat of twilight, and Leia realizes that she’s in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke presses a dusty kiss to Leia’s lips, his hands warm through her clothes in the orange heat of twilight, and Leia realizes that she’s in love.

  
**\-- 1 --**  


Luke presses a dusty kiss to Leia’s lips, his hands warm through her clothes in the orange heat of twilight, and Leia realizes that she’s in love.

Maybe.

She cares for him deeply, of that she has no doubt. Wants him, physically, her heart beating faster against her ribs whenever he touches her, kisses her. Sometimes just when he stands close to her, near enough to touch but not quite touching, close enough that she can feel his presence, wrapped around her like an embrace, her body reacting with desire so strong it takes her breath away, brings a flush across her cheeks.

He’s nothing like the men she knew, growing up on Alderaan, studying politics on Coruscant. Being in love with him is nothing like she’d imagined being in love would be.

Love was, so far as she could tell, a political agreement, an arrangement made for the benefit of two parties and, if possible, of their constituents. Love was a contract that bought approval in the eyes of political opponents and allies alike for the creation of subsequent generations, children and grandchildren born from strategic sexual couplings and raised in strategically multicultural environments, groomed to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before them.

Love was also an adventure, a fiction best contained in the cheap holos and inconsequential novelas her classmates read and giggled over. A myth, no different from The Force and the Jedi of old, full of brave knights and damsels in distress, the battles of good and evil relegated to little more than a footnote, pushed aside to make room for kisses colored by the sunset, for strong arms and blushing maidens and happiness boiled down to little more than a _happily ever after_ tagline.

Leia had scoffed at it then and scoffs at it now, reaching up to drape her arms over Luke’s shoulders and kiss him back, tasting lingering inexperience and newfound eagerness in the little sound he makes at the back of his throat, feeling excitement and desire barely contained in the soft linen of his trousers, his erection pressed hot against her when she leans into him. He’s a knight, or wants to become one, but he’s not all that tall and not terribly strong, kind of gawky and clumsy and naive whenever he isn’t fighting or running for his life. He’s never treated her like a princess, either, none of the false reverence or forced politeness in his tone when he talked to her, back when they were new acquaintances, no shyness in touching her, a nudge of his elbow against her arm when he wanted her to lean close so he could whisper something to her during a briefing, his knee resting against her thigh when they sat together at meals, listening to Han spin some unbelievable story about his life before the Alliance. And where he did technically come to save her, he’s never brought it up, doesn’t brag about it or seek her acknowledgement of it, the loss of the old man he called _Ben_ less than an hour after he’d attempted her rescue too raw for him still, even years later.

He’s real. Imperfect. So earnest it almost _hurts,_ most of the time. Hurting in a way she can understand, so deeply that he doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t expect her to talk about it, either. Happy to hide the pain in the comfort of closeness and intimacy and friendship and sex, the simple escape of giving and receiving pleasure.

And there _is_ pain, the pain of Luke returning to his homeworld of Tatooine, the pain of jealousy in Leia’s gut at his ability to come home, a luxury Leia will never again know. The pain of losing Han, the long months spent away from him, planning and training and spying and adjusting plans accordingly, each day a passing betrayal of the bond tentatively formed among them. The pain in Lando’s eyes when he joins them to share the tidbits of information he’s learned as part of Jabba’s guard, distrust and self-flagellation running like water under his words, his body language. Lando chases it with drink, his breath heavy with the stuff whenever he meets them, his hands as steady as ever as he gestures, drawing invisible blueprints across the tabletop in their hideout, describing possibilities and plans and problems with surprising articulation and skill. Luke buries it under meditation and practice, his form sharper each day, his body faster, sand arcing in a blur as he moves through his routine. And Leia, patient and trained in the art of diplomacy and forbearance, buries it in silence, cataloguing and planning and strengthening her resolve, her unreadable mask.

It’s exhausting. It’s maddening.

But she isn’t alone in it, doesn’t have to suffer in silence or isolation for more than the long, scorching hours of the Tatooine day. She pulls Luke close in the evenings and kisses him, feels the heat and dust and sweat of his skin, the callouses growing rougher each day on his hands, catching on her simple linens, the comfortable clothing of other women on his homeworld. She takes him to her bed and bares him to the growing darkness of evening, the pattern of muscles and scars moving under her hands as familiar as they are thrilling, his touch impatient as he pulls at her clothes, baring her to his gaze.

Luke was a virgin when she met him. He’s learned much, sharing her bed.

He shivers when she drags her fingertips down his chest and belly, skimming them along the length of his cock, stiff already, pressed tight against his foreskin. Answers her touch with his mouth at her throat, feathering light kisses that almost tickle, his breath coming faster as she strokes him, feeling the weight of him, his tip going slick in her hand as he reaches up to cup one of her breasts, his thumb rubbing fretfully over her nipple. She pushes him away from her neck and captures his mouth in a kiss when the friction shifts to just the wrong side of too much, moves her hands to his hips, feels the tension coiled there, restraint and strength held in tenuous balance. He looks down at her with unrestrained hunger when she lies back, the sheets cool under her back, her body open and uncovered to his gaze, and the way he leans down to kiss her, the slightest hesitation in his touch as he moves his kisses down her body, sends a tremor of pleasure down her spine, pooling hot between her legs. The thrill of the power she holds over the man touching her; the simple, animal pleasure of his desire, his craving for her.

She moans on a sigh when he bites the inside of her thigh, the fingers of his left hand moving down to slip between her lips, wet already in anticipation of his touch, swollen and sensitive as he strokes her, tickles her, presses into her, a single finger meeting no resistance, rubbing hard enough to make her voice her pleasure, shifting against the sheets beneath her. He’s looking at her when she opens her eyes to take in the sight of him, looks away as if she’s caught him stealing something that does not belong to him. Dips his head down lower, mouthing at her, distracted and flustered and a little too rough, his tongue gentling when she shifts away from him, whispering across her clit when she stills and lets him try again.

He’d blushed, the first time, when she’d threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged, affection and frustration heavy like water in her throat as she’d asked him if he had _any_ idea what he was doing, the answer obvious between them even before he shook his head and admitted that he did not. After that, he’d learned, trying each suggestion she breathed to him until she was too overwhelmed to speak, her fingers tangled in his hair once again, her entire body wound tense as she pressed up into his mouth and came apart in an electric, throbbing orgasm unlike any she’d ever felt before, his mouth moving lower as the pleasure waned, his tongue dipping inside her, tasting her. Sending aftershocks through her so strongly she’d cried out, his name broken like a prayer on her lips.

He does that again, now, slipping away from her clit to mouth at her, licking her wetness like he’s starved for it, his fingers moving in counterpoint to his tongue. He presses a second finger into her as he moves his mouth higher, crooks them inside her in time with the brush of his tongue to the side of her clit, teasing and building and tickling until she gives up on holding still and rocks her hips up, shifting his tongue to rub over her directly, sparks of sensation making her shiver under him. He moans softly, his breath warm against her cunt, and presses his face closer, his tongue moving faster against her, drinking her in.

“Luke,” she murmurs, her toes curling in the sheets, feet pressing rhythmically to either side of him, rocking her into his touch, and he answers her with a sigh, his body shifting, impatient and wanting, the head of his cock visibly wet when she looks down the line of her own body to his, curled between her legs. The promise of a different sort of pleasure, yet to come.

He holds her close with his free hand when she starts to tremble against him, close but not quite past the point of no return, breathes a low sound almost like a growl as he licks at her, the flat of his tongue pressing at her clit, just rough enough to make her breath catch in her throat, her cunt clenching tight around his fingers. She reaches for him and holds him close when it hits, her back bowing and thighs shaking, his mouth hot and breathless against her as she comes, the brush and push of his tongue graceless and perfect, a welcome overstimulation that makes her entire body go limp as the crescendo fades, leaving her gasping for breath, weak as she reaches for him, pulling him close to kiss.

His mouth is wet, slick with her pleasure. She kisses it from him, tastes herself on his lips. Hums with pleasure when she brushes her thumb across his cheek and he turns to pull it into his mouth, sucking lightly at the pad.

She pushes him backwards, his head at the foot of the bed, pillowed on the rumpled blanket and what Leia would guess is his tunic, maybe his trousers, the light colors blending together in the darkness of the room, and braces her hands on his chest, laughing softly at the awkward negotiation of their legs, knees and feet bumping as Luke stretches out under her, his cock dripping against his belly in anticipation of her touch. She doesn’t make him wait for it, reaching down to steady him, sliding down his length with a satisfied sigh, his cock stretching open muscles still tensed from her orgasm, sending a different thrill through her, a deeper, earthier pleasure at the feel of him opening her body, lodged deep inside her. He sucks in a breath when she rolls her hips forward and sinks down onto him again, grasping fretfully at her hips. Bends his legs, an unconscious bid for control that she dampens immediately with a push of her full weight against his thighs, his feet sliding against the sheets, his legs flat once again. They share a smile as she rocks forward, her stronger personality an unspoken joke between them in bed. Share a kiss when she leans down close enough to brush her mouth against his, the salt of her pleasure still plain on his lips.

He touches her as she moves over him, stroking her thighs, her belly. Reaches up to cup her breasts, fanning his fingers over her nipples, peaked from the thrill of their coupling. She closes her eyes and focuses on the warmth of his touch, the intimacy of his bionic hand, feeling her as if it were a natural part of him, something he avoids everywhere else in his life, his false hand a burden to him, a reminder of weakness and failure. Lets him push up into her as his touch begins to falter elsewhere, his attention fragmenting. Stops him with a simple press of her full body weight, pinning him to the mattress.

“Like this,” she says, turning carefully without pulling him free of her body, the feel of him moving inside her, hard and unyielding erotic and maddening. There’s wetness gathered on the swell of his sac, the slick reminder of her pleasure, and Luke moans softly when she traces her finger through it, down to the join of his thighs, sweaty with the effort of restraint. She rocks into him, forcing him as deep into her body as he can go and he cries out, legs bending and spreading, and she lets him, bracing herself as best she can as he meets her rhythm in counterpoint, urging her to a faster pace with the push of his hips, the creak of the bed beneath them.

When she leans back against him, his chest warm and damp with sweat where it touches her back, her legs braced to either side of his hips, holding her aloft, he gasps and grips her hard, driving up into her, his rhythm disintegrating into the sweet desperation she craves each time she kisses him, each time he pulls her close. She feels her cunt clenching in response to his pleasure, the cresting wave of release shuddering through her even before he bucks hard under her and shouts as orgasm takes him, seeming to tear him apart as he pushes into her, gasping like a man drowning.

She turns to kiss him as he goes limp beneath her, his breath harsh against her mouth as he kisses back, muzzy and distracted as he always is after he comes. Slides him out of her body just long enough to turn and straddle him, his cock hard enough still for her to slide it back inside her body, once she’s settled against him, facing him, his expression twisting a little at the friction, too much now, probably a little painful. He doesn’t object, though, relaxing beneath her once she’s settled on him, his hand gentle in her hair, his chest rising and falling a bit faster than usual, heart beating a steady rhythm under her hands.

“I love you,” she says, without thinking, the words comfortable and easy in the closeness of their shared bedroom, the intimacy of the moment.

Luke hesitates. Pulls one of her hands to his mouth, kissing the side of her index finger. “I love you, too,” he says, softly. As if tasting the words, testing them in the darkness.

\---

He makes her a cup of bitter tea in the morning, offers it to her with a soft smile and a kiss at the corner of her mouth when she comes in and finds him dressed already and dulled with the dust of Tatooine, a sure sign that he’s been up and practicing with his lightsaber for some time already. The tea is as unpleasant as ever, a combination of herbs commonly used on his homeworld to prevent unplanned additions to families struggling as it is against the harsh climate and ever-present threat of increased taxes and violence from the Hutts. She drinks it without thought, distracting herself as always with memories of the night before, her hand wandering to her belly as her mind strays to conjecture, images of what a child might look like, born from their coupling. Short and fair, she thinks, perhaps with Luke’s blue eyes. Strong and good. Loving. Damned to a life of fear and loss, should either she or Luke become distracted from their work, from the goals of the Alliance, sentenced to a life of darkness and hatred and terror and anguish. Nothing she would wish on most, and least of all on her own child.

Luke jars her from her thoughts with the touch of his hands, wrapping around her waist, his right resting over the hand on her belly, squeezing just lightly around her fingers.

“Are you all right?” he says against the shell of her ear.

Leia nods, turning just enough to kiss the tip of his nose. “Yes,” she says. “I’m fine.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t write het, and yet here it is, incest-het at that. ‘Cept it’s not really incest because they don’t know? I dunno. I feel bad about how much I like this pairing.

Also what the fuck is up with that ending? That’s just depressing. Way to ruin the porn, me. =_=

... oh, and if this is one of those pairings that gets lots of hate, please warn me? I got blindsided in the last fandom I was in where I attempted het pairings, and that’s an experience I’d really rather miss, if I could.

Oh, and PPS: I wrote part of this in Basic during a staff meeting. ‘Cause I’m _that_ big a dork. Yup.


	2. Tea for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve been avoiding me,” Leia says when Luke sits beside her, his knee leaned gently against hers.
> 
> He hasn’t and he has. “I’m sorry,” he says in compromise.
> 
> She reaches for his hand, wraps her fingers around it. “I understand,” she says. “It’s been ... an adjustment.”

**\-- 2 --**

“Go wait with the ship, Artoo,” Luke says when the vision fades, Ben’s voice little more than a memory, echoing in his head around the throb of a coming headache. He brushes the fingertips of his right hand over the ‘droid’s smooth metal dome as he speaks, the sensors connected to his nervous system vaguely registering the moisture condensed on the metal, the cool of it stark in contrast to the heavy warmth of evening, trapped in the fog surrounding them. He follows Artoo down the main path a dozen footsteps, his stride framed in the tracks left from the ‘droid’s wheels. Splits off when he feels the familiar chill coming from the grove of trees not far from Yoda’s hut. Draws a steadying breath as he ducks under the twists of vine tangled between the branches, his skin prickling with anticipation of what he might see, sunk deep in the darkness.

In the gloom of twilight, his mind cleared and open, he settles on the damp peat, legs folded in his favored meditative pose, and closes his eyes, reaching out to see more clearly. Waiting, patient in the face of fear, of apprehension.

His aunt and uncle sit before him, staring at him unblinking. A memory, a vision of the past, Uncle Owen’s hair still a mix of brown and silver, his face less lined with the strain of long life, Aunt Beru’s hair longer than she wore it as she aged, tied back in a loose bun. She shakes her head at him when Luke moves closer to them, wanting to touch them, to speak to them, to tell them he’s sorry, that he loves them. Melts into memory when Luke approaches anyway, craving closure and comfort, left with neither.

He turns in the darkness and Han is standing beside him, human and living but frozen in immobility, motionless but for his eyes, tracking Luke’s every move. He wheezes when he breathes, looks down at his hands, his fingers just barely twitching when Luke follows his gaze, looking down. Eager to wrap his hands around Luke’s throat in anger, in betrayal, the skin sallow against unseen bonds as he struggles and strains, wanting with animal lust to share the agony and suffering Luke caused in ignorance and impatience, the pain and misery Luke avoided, safe and loved in the quiet privacy of Ben’s home on Tatooine.

Leia touches him on the arm, distracting him from Han’s neutered revenge, pressing close to him, her body warm and soft, nude against his clothing. He can hear her feet moving in the moss and leaves and mud of Dagobah, her toes delicate and soft against the stained leather of his boots when he turns and puts his arm around her, shielding her from eyes unseen around them. She sighs against his throat, pressing a single kiss to his collarbone. Rests her face against his chest, her hair soft when he rests his chin atop her head.

“Your sister,” she says in Ben’s voice, her arms tightening around him, squeezing him with unnatural strength. “Your twin sister. Lord Vader’s daughter.”

Luke draws a slow breath and lets his arms fall away from the physical mockery of the woman he so deeply loved, steady and calm in the vice of his sister’s embrace, a hug mutilated by anger and disgust and fear and loss. “My sister,” he repeats, the words formed in his soul, his lips still and slack, closed against the taste of rot suffusing the surface of the planet. “My twin sister. My father’s daughter.”

The pressure on his chest relents. He opens his eyelids and sees darkness and mist and movement, not far off, probably a snake or a rat, curious and fearful of him, his presence foreign and unknown in its natural habitat. His chest aches, a physical ache that pulls at him, bleeds up his throat. Sends the burn of unspent energy through his arms, his legs, his gut, the irrational urge to punch something, to destroy something. To unclip his lightsaber from his belt and burn it through the trees surrounding him, through the animals and reptiles and birds breathing life and noise and tangible existence around him, the lot of them potential victims, innocent of the crimes for which he could punish them.

He closes his eyes, instead. Reaches out, reckless and uncontrolled, for the Force. He can feel Leia immediately, anxiety and loneliness and fear swirling through her like tea steeping in water, control surrounding her like porcelain; fragile and beautiful, stronger than she trusts it to be. He can feel Han, Han’s characteristic humor and nonchalance covering terror and weakness and uncertainty that flow through him like sand in an abandoned doorway, Chewbacca’s presence nearby projected like a comfort oddly similar to a child’s favorite blanket or stuffed toy. He can feel Lando, friend and lover and savior and traitor, keeping distance with his body and his heart, unyielding in the face of acceptance and forgiveness, broken and bleeding behind strength and insight offered like penance, like a beggar’s prayer.

He feels countless others around them, men and women wrapped up in their own private dramas, their thoughts merging and meshing like water rushing over broken rocks, pooling and trickling away unmarked. He can feel his father, anguished and suffering, alone, isolated, reaching back for Luke, sensing him, greed and motive darkening the touch of his mind, secrets slipping like dead leaves under the surface of his thoughts. Darkness clouds the whole of his being, obscuring him in the shroud of the evil monster Luke has believed him to be, danger like that of a wounded animal undercutting Luke’s desire to fight him, to kill him. To hurt him like Luke himself hurts.

Vader cannot know. Of that, Ben was right. If he knew, if he learned through Luke of his daughter’s existence, if Leia suffered because of it --

Luke opens his eyes, the Force going silent around him like a choked prayer. He frowns at the darkness of evening, fully gathered around him, now, and commences his exercises, reaching out in the Force and lifting his mental shields, pulling them as high as he can reach, until his very soul aches under his skin.

\---

He fails in all but one of his objectives, fails himself, his people, his family.

He protects Leia as best he can, and his father passes away without knowing more than her existence, a speck of light far beyond the darkness of his death.

\---

The secrets fill Luke with loneliness, afterwards, once the bright noise of celebration dies down into the hum of strategy and politics, of defection and persuasion, resistance and suspicion. Solitude is not an option in the closeness of the newborn Republic, so he spends his days alongside Leia and Han and Lando and Chewbacca, spends his evenings meditating and planning and second-guessing, his nights in a sleep fraught with dreams and nightmares, barely soothed by the Force.

He wants -- deeply, irrationally, _passionately_ \-- to kiss Leia one last time. Yearns to share a bed with her, to wrap his arms around her and breathe her presence so close to him, just for a single night. He misses her, the closeness of her, the intimacy of their quiet domestic life lived out in the dust of a world he once despised for its lack of adventure and excitement. 

When she comes to him, late one evening, her face pale and hands shaking as she asks to speak privately with him, he welcomes her into his quarters and offers her a seat and stands by, awkward and uncertain in a way he’s not been since he was twenty-one and pressing his lips against hers in his first ever kiss, his heart racing in his throat. She considers him with a measured look and makes him laugh with a sigh and a roll of her eyes, calls him _ridiculous_ as she pats the soft cotton of the blanket covering his bunk, ordering him with little more than that gesture to join her, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, to smell her perfume.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she says when he sits beside her, his knee leaned gently against hers.

He hasn’t and he has. “I’m sorry,” he says in compromise.

She reaches for his hand, wraps her fingers around it. “I understand,” she says. “It’s been ... an adjustment.”

She isn’t talking about the strategy meetings stretching late into the night, the numbing devastation of the casualty reports coming in after each skirmish, each engagement. Luke squeezes her hand and reaches for her through the Force, feels her presence, bright and beautiful and unique, like the silver glint of sunlight on flowing water. He feels love -- his own and hers -- feels affection and desire and comfort and possessiveness. He feels loss and distance. Separation. Loneliness. He feels guilt and uncertainty. Excitement. Fear. A flash of something else, something deeper. Hidden like a secret, tucked deep inside.

“You’re pregnant,” he says, realization lancing through him like a blaster shot, the words brittle in the air, no thought behind them.

Leia’s eyes go wide, her body tensing. “I -- I thought I might be,” she said. “But --” She looks away. Swallows. “You’re certain?”

Regret squeezes at Luke’s throat, his own stupidity threatening to choke the breath from him. “No,” he says, the lie obvious to him even as it leaves his mouth.

“You are.”

“Leia, I --”

She quiets him with a look. Considers him, silent for what feels like a very long time. “You’re more powerful than you think,” she says.

Words that would have absolutely _thrilled_ his younger self, the idiot boy who rushed to the aid of a princess and accidentally fell in love with the woman sitting beside him. Luke shakes his head, as if the motion could dislodge the notion, could override its meaning. “Is it --” he begins, but doubt pushes at him and he flounders. “The baby. Am I -- I mean, I couldn’t, right, we -- we haven’t --” He gestures, helplessly. Wanting so badly for her to tell him what he wants to hear, knowing with his full being that he should want exactly the opposite of what he does.

Leia cocks her head at him, confused for only a heartbeat before realization passes over her expression like a shadow, understanding warm in her eyes as she shakes her head. “No,” she says, softly. “Han.”

Luke’s heart aches in his chest. He nods, squeezes Leia’s hand, warm where it sits on his thigh. “Of course,” he says. Then: “Good.”

“He doesn’t know. I’m not sure how to tell him.”

Her tone laced with apprehension and dread. Understandable in a way Luke wishes it weren’t, in a way he wishes guiltily he weren’t glad for it to be. He opens his mouth, wanting to offer comfort, but no words come, his mind racing too quickly for him to pin down one single idea, to give it voice. He pulls his hand free of his sister’s and pulls her close, instead, holds her against him in a loose embrace that she returns as if she’d been barely restraining herself from initiating the touch, the long overdue contact, her body so achingly familiar against his that it gives him the irrational urge to scream, to tighten his grip around her until his bones creak.

“How will I raise a child in this world?” she whispers against his chest after what feels like a very long time, his chest damp from her breath, her words tight with agony as they rise between them, voice given finally to thoughts and fears and doubts too long trapped in the quiet of her thoughts, the echoes of her suffering resonating in Luke’s chest, slipping like shadows into the fissures and breaks in his heart. “How can I possibly protect him, when we can’t even protect ourselves?”

“You won’t do it alone, Leia,” Luke promises, resting his cheek against the silk of her hair, his hands tracing patterns across the tense muscles of her back, offering scant relief, superficial comfort. He closes his eyes, breathes the scent of her, the rhythm of her heartbeat, faint under his touch, the warmth of her skin, heightened by pain and fear and love and loss. “I promise. You aren’t alone.”

\---

He’s with her when the pain of labor strikes, long months of war and desolation and struggle later, her anguished cry in the cavernous war-room echoing in his memory as he sits by her bedside in the med-bay and holds her hand while she screams and suffers and sobs, the hours of labor stretched long into the night, into the morning. He reaches out to her through the Force early on, wanting to offer comfort and relief and strength, but the pain of her body and terror in her heart consume him, cripple him. Leave him clutching her hand and murmuring to her in impotent concern, as awe-struck by her strength as he was when he first met her, his expectations of her worlds apart from the reality of her power, her capacity to endure and withstand and overcome.

His hand slips from hers as she reaches out to hold her newborn son for the first time, the memory of blood and pain overwhelmed by joy and wonder as she cradles him against her breast, her eyes filling with tears as she takes in the sight of him, whispering _he’s perfect,_ when she looks up to meet Luke’s gaze, tears dropping from her eyelashes to the exhausted flush of her cheeks. Her son is tiny, fragile in the white blanket they’ve wrapped around him. Quiet in his mother’s arms, no longer screaming with the pain of being birthed in his mother’s blood. Leia kisses him on the forehead, touches his hair, dark like hers, like Han’s, with the tips of her fingers.

“Do you want to hold him?” she says, when Luke shifts beside her, his chest tight with emotions he couldn’t name if he wanted to.

Luke nods and reaches out, his heart beating faster with uncertainty as he takes the baby in his arms, the boy impossibly small and weak and vulnerable, eyes dark and unfocused, seeing everything and nothing as Luke holds him, looks at him. He squirms, restless, as Luke cradles him against his chest, his bionic hand registering the warmth of him through the blanket, his left pressing gently at the curve of impossibly tiny fingers, soft and pure against the callouses and scars of memory marking Luke’s skin. “He’s beautiful,” he tells Leia, looking up to see her watching him, her eyes bright with fresh tears, her cheeks wet.

He kisses her when he hands the child back, leaning close to nestle him in the warmth of his mother’s embrace. It’s an impulse, no thought behind it, a simple press of his mouth against hers, but it sends a jolt of panic through his gut anyway, his skin electric with it when he pulls back, expecting rebuke. Leia looks at him with love and affection and reaches for him, touches his cheek with her palm. Pulls him close, guiding him so that his forehead rests against hers, his shadow falling over her and her son, covering them.

“I’m glad you were with me,” she murmurs, her fingers fretful in his hair, squeezing at the base of his skull.

Luke closes his eyes, tips his chin up to press a kiss to the line of her hair. “I’m glad I could be here,” he says.

\---

“I’ve decided to call him ‘Ben,’” she says the next day when Luke comes to visit her, his hands slow and careful as he braids her hair for her, her hands busy supporting her baby, keeping him close as he nurses. “For Ben Kenobi, of course. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t’ve met you and Han. Wouldn’t’ve become a mother.”

Luke smiles at her simple logic, his hands winding the strands of her hair into a smooth, even braid without conscious thought going into it. “It’s a good name,” he says, tying off the end of the braid before twisting it up and over the crown of her head, securing it at the nape of her neck, the style she’s favored lately. “You chose well.”

Leia looks at him over her shoulder, and he has to consciously resist the urge to lean forward and kiss the soft smile curving the corner of her mouth. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m glad you approve.”

\---

Han wears fatherhood as awkwardly as he wore the medal Leia placed around his neck after the Battle of Yavin 4, holding his newborn son like he isn’t certain he wants to, like he’s convinced he’s going to mess up, to hurt the infant sleeping in his arms. He looks at Ben like he’s never seen a baby before, looks at Leia like she’s transformed into some unknown creature before his eyes, as foreign and terrifying as the unknown void of space. Luke watches him, watches Leia. Masks his surprise when Han huffs a bewildered laugh after a long moment of staring at his son and leans over to kiss Leia on the mouth with more earnest, honest affection and love than Luke would have expected to see from him, Leia’s relief and joy as she kisses him back palpable against Luke’s soul, like morning sunshine warm on Luke’s skin.

“A father, huh,” Han says, straightening and looking down at his son. “Helluva thing.” He slants a grin at Luke, winks at him, his eyes dark, almost manic. “Guess this means I can’t call you ‘kid’ anymore, huh?” he says. “No longer the runt in our little group. But only barely.”

Leia elbows Han in the hip, casting an uncertain look at Luke before frowning up at Han. “Be nice,” she says.

“I’m always nice,” Han says. He looks down at Ben, looks at Luke. “Aren’t I?”

Luke offers him a smile and excuses himself from the room, his heart filling fast with ugly jealousy, the selfish wish that the baby in Han’s arms were his. That for once -- just once -- things had gone in his favor, tipped towards his happiness. He retreats to the relative seclusion of the wilderness just beyond the med-bay and moves through one of the meditations Yoda taught him, struggling violently for his center, for peace. He feels the pull of the Dark Side, feels it feed off of the hatred and doubt and fear bleeding from his soul. Pushes at it, seeking calm and defense. He’s only moderately successful, only just in control when Han comes looking for him, wearing his own and Leia’s concern like a shawl, Luke’s reassurances falling stale in the space between them.

 

 

 

 

 

Oops I added a second chapter and it hurts me, folks, it _hurts._ Also, pregnancy/birth/child-rearing all terrify me and are not activities in which I have participated or will ever participate. Kudos to the brave souls who do. Just _writing_ about it makes me want to put my uterus on eBay and hide under a desk.


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